Overview
CLICK HERE to learn about upcoming and past events for Their Eyes Were Watching God and the entire 75th Anniversary Series.
Like countless creative collaborations, the one between Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes was fruitful but ultimately ended in acrimony. Award-winning WQXR radio host Terrance McKnight, who recently finished a radio documentary exploring Langston’s commonly overlooked musical endeavors entitled I, Too, Sing American: Music in the Life of Langston Hughes, will take us on a multimedia journey to the Harlem Renaissance, the burgeoning cultural era for African Americans that was the setting for Zora and Langston’s ill-fated partnership. Excerpts from Mule Bone – a comedy about African American life that Hurston and Hughes began writing in 1930, but that Hurston submitted for copyright as the sole writer – will be read. The copy of this play in the Langston Hughes papers at Yale University has a hand-written notation by Hughes: “This play was never done because the authors fell out.” The evening will also include musical presentations by pianist Randy Weston, pianist, Jim Davis actor, Carl Hancock Rux actor, Iris Williams bass Kevin Maynor, Song of Solomon Chorus and vocalist Maritri Garrett as well as conversation with Marc Primus, curator and historian.
(For further information on the radio special, please visit WQXR)